Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive, Inc.

Type	Public (NASDAQ: HPOL)
Industry	Market research
Founded	1956 (Louis Harris & Associates) 1975 (Gordon S. Black Corporation)
Headquarters	New York, New York[1]
Key people	Howard Shecter (Chairman)[2] Al Angrisani (President and CEO)[2]
Revenue	$184.3 million, FYE June 2009[1]
Employees	850 (full time)[1]
Website	http://www.harrisinteractive.com/

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ: HPOL), headquartered in New York, New York, is a custom market research firm, known for the Harris Poll. Harris works in a wide range of industries. Harris claims to have clients in more than 215 countries and territories through North American, European, and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms.

The company is a member of numerous research organizations, including the US National Council of Public Polls, the British Polling Council , the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, the US Council for Marketing and Opinion Research, and the UK Market Research Society.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Growth of online polling 1.2 Mergers, Acquisitions, and Sale of Business 2 Harris Poll 3 References

History

Harris Interactive was founded by Dr. Gordon S. Black in 1975, then a professor of political science at the University of Rochester in New York. The company was originally named the Gordon S. Black Corporation. In 1996, it acquired Louis Harris & Associates (founded in 1956) from the Gannett Corporation. In 1997, the merged company renamed itself Harris Black International Ltd.^[3]

Growth of online polling

In 1997, the Internet was relatively new to the non-technical public. Harris Black International Ltd began exploring its use in the fall of that year.^[3] In December 1999, it went public and re-branded itself as Harris Interactive, a name that hinted at the increasing role of interactive surveys on the Internet.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Sale of Business

The Gordon S. Black Corporation was founded in 1975 as a New York corporation. It formed and became part of the Delaware corporation now known as Harris Interactive in 1997. During these years, the company’s acquisitions have included:

• February 1996 — all of the stock of Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., headquartered in New York.^[3]
• February 2001 — the custom research division of Yankelovich Partners, Inc., headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.^[4]
• August 2001 — all of the capital stock of Market Research Solutions Limited, a privately-owned U.K. company headquartered in Oxford, England.^[3]
• September 2001 — all of the capital stock of M&A Create Limited, a privately-owned company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.^[3]
• November 2001 — all of the capital stock of Total Research Corporation, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.^[3]
• March 2004 — all of the capital stock of Novatris, S.A. (“Novatris”), a share corporation organized and existing under the laws of France.^[3]
• September 2004 — all of the capital stock of Wirthlin Worldwide, Inc. a privately-held California corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia.^[5]
• April 2007 — all of the capital stock of MediaTransfer AG Netresearch & Consulting, a privately-held German stock corporation headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.^[6]
• August 2007 — all of the capital stock of Decima Research Inc. (“Decima”), a corporation incorporated in Ontario, Canada. ^[7]
• August 2007 — all of the capital stock of Marketshare Limited, a company incorporated under the laws of Hong Kong, and Marketshare Pte Ltd, a company incorporated under the laws of Singapore.^[7]

Chief executives

Name	Tenure
Gordon S. Black	1975 – January 2004
Robert E. Knapp	January 2004 – May 2005
Gregory T. Novak	May 2005 – October 2008
Kimberly Till	October 2008 – June 2011
Albert A. Angrisani (interim)	June 2011 – present

Harris Poll

The Harris Poll has been running since 1963 and covers a broad variety of topics^[8]. In 1997, Harris Interactive began developing an on-line version of The Harris Poll. It has also developed several Internet-based polls in conjunction with other companies.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Harris Interactive - About Us". Harris Interactive. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/about/. Retrieved 23 November 2009. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Board of Directors". Harris Interactive. http://ir.harrisinteractive.com/directors.cfm. Retrieved 23 November 2009. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Harris Interactive| About Us| Our Heritage. Last accessed 2007-03-25.
4. ^ Zippern, Andrew. "Technology briefing: Research; Harris Buys Yankelovich Unit" in The New York Times, February 15, 2001.
5. ^ "Harris Interactive Inc - HPOL - Unscheduled Material Events". Retrieved 2004-03-26.
6. ^ "Harris Interactive Inc - HPOL - News". Retrieved 2007-01-22.
7. ^ ^{a b} "Harris Interactive Inc - HPOL - News". Retrieved 2007-01-22.
8. ^ "Hoovers Company Report". http://www.hoovers.com/company/Harris_Interactive_Inc/jryfxi-1.html. Retrieved October 2, 2011. 

"Harris Interactive Files Suit Against AOL, Microsoft, Qwest, and other ISPs Over Restraint of Trade"

"Harris Interactive Drops Lawsuit Against MAPS, ISPs" in Direct, Sept 13, 2000. </ref>

"Harris Interactive- Information from Answers.com"